New Sites in Our City

We here at the Hampton Inn & Suites Alexandria Old Town are very proud of our peace keeping efforts as well as how we are honoring our troops locally!

We are very excited about the opening to the new Martin Luther King Jr. memorial!  It opened on monday but the formal dedication is this Sunday the 28th.  Some were locals who've watched for years as the memorial to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. took shape on the National Mall. Some were tourists who happened to be in Washington the day it opened. All felt honored to be a part of history as they gazed at a towering granite sculpture of the civil rights leader.

Hundreds of people slowly filed through the entrance to the 4-acre memorial site on a warm, sunny Monday morning in the nation's capital. Before reaching the sculpture, they passed through two pieces of granite carved to resemble the sides of a mountain.

About 50 feet ahead stands the 30-foot-tall sculpture by Chinese artist Lei Yixin. King appears to emerge from a stone extracted from the mountain, facing southeast across the Tidal Basin to the Jefferson Memorial.

Crowds will begin to descend on the National Mall for the formal dedication of the new Martin Luther King Jr. memorial. President Obama is among those scheduled to speak.  The official dedication is slated to begin on Sunday -- the 48th anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington and King's historic "I Have A Dream" speech -- with a pre-dedication concert at 10 a.m. The dedication ceremony, which includes Obama's comments, is set for 11. That will be followed by a post-dedication concert at 2 p.m.

They even have a Facebook page at: http://www.facebook.com/MLKNationalMemorial

Also something worth noting is our Wounded Warrior Complex on Fort Belvoir that is opening!  The Wounded Warrior Barracks and Wounded Warrior Complex at the National Naval Medical Center here are symbols of the military covenant of caring for troops whether they are at home or deployed, and after hospital discharges.

The new barracks and complex for wounded warrior care are provisions of the Base Closure and Realignment Commission, which consolidates NNMC and Walter Reed Army Medical Center, the two military flagship hospitals.

Families will have accommodations "just steps away," he said, with child care on the premises so wounded warriors won't have to worry about how their families are faring while they receive care.  The barracks and adjoining complex, which is the renovated historic Naval Medical Research Institute, offer nearly 300,000 square feet of 153 two-person suites, a dining hall that will prepare 1,500 meals a day, an Olympic-sized swimming pool, gym and the latest in medical technology to care for the wounded.

Patients are scheduled to move into the new barracks and complex at the end of August, just prior to Walter Reed and NNMC joining forces at Bethesda under the new name, Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.